This is Part II of our case study about helping a dog after a loss (see August 24th blog for Part I). As usual, many of you came up with insightful and helpful comments. I benefit from your thoughtfulness every day, and I thank you for it. If you are interested in this topic, either personally or professionally, I encourage you to read the first post about Dogs Grieving as well as the comments. Here are some of my thoughts and comments about the most important things to do if a dog is behaving as though he is grieving a loss: 1. ACCEPTANCE. Easiest to say, hardest to do. By "acceptance" I mean accepting that you couldn't prevent the death or disappearance of another, and that you can't 'fix' the pain that your living dog may be going through. If your dog is truly grieving (and I Read More
First Case Study – A Grieving Dog
Lots of you liked the idea of doing some case studies, as well as reviewing and discussing photos and videos. I think it's a great idea, so here goes our first one: Here's Sleeves on the left, and Patch on the right. I'm sad to report that Patch died just last week and her sister Michaela died only a month ago. All three of them, "Boonie" dogs--or mixed-breed dogs as they are called on Guam where they were born, were raised together and were litter mates. The litter lost their mother at 4 weeks, and owner Cin bottle fed them and raised them together. Brother Sleeve appears to be devastated at the lost of both of his litter mates in such a short period of time (not to mention poor Cin, the owner). Sleeve appears to be grieving, and is described as "so sad" by Cin. Usually this Read More
Do Other Animals Keep Pets?
A colleague just sent me a link to one of my favorite science and behavior blogs, that of Harold Herzog, the author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals. I use his book in my University class, The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal Relationships," because the author is thoughtful, knowledgeable and one of those rare scientists who writes beautifully. If you find the topic interesting and haven't read his book yet, pick up a copy. I highly recommend it. The book includes a section on pets, and his recent blog addresses that issue as well; in this case, whether a video-gone-viral about "Baboons Keeping Dogs as Pets" accurately depicts the relationship between individuals of these two species. If you haven't seen it yet, the Read More
The Ten-Year Anniversary of OEL
I was recently reminded that my first national book, The Other End of the Leash, was published in June of 2002, ten years ago (thank you Lisa). Wow. Ten years. It feels like a long time, and it feels like the years have flown by. Time is like that. There's something about big blocks of time and anniversaries--10 years, 25 years--that helps us to step out of our busy lives and look at the big picture. This feels especially relevant to me now as I work on a memoir. I find myself asking what parts of the book still resonate most for me, and what aspects of the book most relate to what I want to say in the memoir. At the moment there are two things that stand out the most: how understanding the world as best we can from a dog's perspective enriches our relationship, and how dogs are such a Read More
Dogs and People Both Achieve the Runner’s High
We're happy to introduce Karen London, Ph.D. as a guest blogger for The Other End of the Leash this week! Enjoy! If people go running by your home accompanied by their cats, geckos, ferrets, parrots, or rats, then you live in a very different neighborhood, perhaps even a different world, than I do. It’s just not part of our relationship with those species, however close we may be to them. Yet running is something that many of us share with our dogs, to the point that it’s almost cliché for people to swear that their dog is the best running partner they’ve ever had. There are so many reasons why people choose to run with their dogs beyond just knowing that their dogs need the exercise. Unlike most human running partners, dogs don’t ever have meetings that go late. They wouldn’t Read More
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